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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22564954">and our sorrows all undone</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/meritmut/pseuds/meritmut'>meritmut</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A soft epilogue(tm), Babies, F/M, Fix-It, Romance, because Rey deserves the world</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 08:21:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,098</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22564954</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/meritmut/pseuds/meritmut</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It was funny, Rey thought: the kid got the exact same furrow between her brows as she did when she was frustrated, but the way she pursed her lips and glowered was <em>all</em> Ben.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kylo Ren/Rey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>60</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>379</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>TROS Reylo Fix-it Fics</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>and our sorrows all undone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/pythia/gifts">pythia</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I have been waiting to use that lyric for a reylo fic since 2016 and <b>balls</b> to tros for not letting it be a canon one</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rey stirred. Cold crept in, furtive as a shadow, slipping under the sheets and into the empty space at her back; cold, and the sinking, hollow awareness of her own aloneness. The room was dark when she opened her eyes. Her heart beat a furious tattoo against her ribcage, the sound of it thunderous in her ears. For a long minute she lay there, counting each breath with practiced patience, willing the memory of the dream away.</p><p>A dream. That was all it had been.</p><p>Rey rolled onto her back, releasing a slow, unsteady breath. She stared, unseeing, at the ceiling, the blank canvas over which haunting images of her dream unfurled.</p><p>A body, dissolving to nothing under her hands. A void opening up inside her; a terrible silence where the other half of her soul had been.</p><p>It hadn’t felt like a dream, not at the time. It had all felt so terrifyingly, plausibly <em>real.</em></p><p><em>Stupid, </em>she chid herself, not as unkindly as she might once have. <em>All dreams feel real</em>. Now that she was awake she could see clearly how absurd her subconscious imaginings had been, how what had seemed possible, even probable, was nothing more than nonsense cobbled together from the scattered threads of her consciousness: a machine fashioned crudely from cannibalised parts. It was just—it had been so long since the dreams had been this vivid. They’d been getting better for months, now, and she had begun to believe that <em>she</em> was getting better. That she had laid her ghosts to rest; that what was dead would stay that way.</p><p>Her hand stretched out over the empty bed beside her, reaching for something that was not there.</p><p>Absurd it might have been, but still she was filled with a creeping unease, a fearful dread that whispered from the very darkest corners of her heart. It spoke to her deepest, oldest anxieties, the voices that were the hardest of all to quiet.</p><p>
  <em>Forgotten. Left behind. Alone.</em>
</p><p><em>Shut up, </em>she ordered the voice, curling her fingers into the ghost of the warmth still clinging to the sheets beside her.</p><p>Something moved in the doorway. Glancing down, Rey watched a dark mass loom over the threshold, pausing there before it began to make its careful way toward the bed.</p><p>It paused again when it saw she was awake.</p><p>“Hey,” the mass mumbled, in the familiar beloved voice that silenced all others with a word. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”</p><p>Rey shook her head slightly, though there was no way he could see it. “You didn’t.”</p><p>Ben hummed, thoughtfully, as he eased into the bed, sliding straight over to the middle so he could drape one massive arm over her stomach. His hand, big enough to span her torso from navel to sternum, <em>radiated </em>heat—like the rest of him, this furnace of a man who seemed to leech all the warmth from the world when he left her side and stirred the sunrise in her heart when he returned. His thumb rubbed little circles just below her breast, soothing a tension she had hoped she wasn't broadcasting. “Dreams?”</p><p>“Mhm.” Rather than elaborate Rey turned onto her side, shuffling closer to press her face into Ben’s shoulder. She could feel his heart, like this, laid chest to chest, bodies as close as ever two bodies could be, and still it wasn’t enough: she wanted to be closer, to be connected, to be <em>inside.</em> It was nothing less than an inconvenience sometimes, inhabiting separate forms, when all she wanted to do was burrow so deeply under his skin that the bounds of flesh and blood dissolved and they became one. They already were in principle, she mused, laying the first of a trail of lazy kisses against his collarbone. Their hearts, their minds were parted by only the thinnest of veils, and there were moments where she felt they truly were one person. If it were to become literal; if Ben were to enfold her in his arms and encase her utterly in the solid breadth of his body, taking her so deep inside he’d never get her out again, she would have no complaints. His body looked far more comfortable than hers, and he was always so <em>warm—</em></p><p>“Everything okay?” she asked, or tried to, it was hard to get the words out with her mouth affixed to his neck but the challenge was worth it when Ben gave a delicate shudder, his hand moving around her back to spread between her scapulae and press her just a little <em>closer</em>. His thigh nudged its way between hers, gentle but insistent, seeking to tangle them together even more completely.</p><p>“Perfect,” he rumbled. Then, dryly: “Your feet are cold.”</p><p>“So…” she drew up her knees and flattened the soles of her feet against Ben’s calves, smirking at the soft whine her touch elicited. “Warm them up.”</p><p>A tremor passed through him again, this time of quiet laughter, and his arms tightened around her until her own amusement trailed off into a wheeze. “You,” he murmured, one hand slipping up to cradle the back of her head, “are a menace.” His fingers moved lightly over her scalp, easing away the last lingering tension from her muscles, and Rey felt a familiar delicious thrill in her blood at the effortless way he could <em>surround</em> her.</p><p>It should have made her feel small; instead, she felt invincible.</p><p>“Mm,” she managed in response. “I know.”</p><p>His long nose nudged her temple, and she turned her head to meet his lips in a slow, unhurried kiss.</p><p>In the beginning, he had kissed like a man whose time was running out. Like he was afraid there wouldn't be more days and nights of this, like there was a limit to the happiness permitted anyone in this life, and so was determined to make every last second count. Rey knew enough of loneliness to understand that impulse, which was perhaps why—though she had loved the urgency, the <em>hunger</em> that coloured the way he loved her then—she loved more the way he kissed her now. Like they had all the time in the world: like there were ahead of them years, centuries, millennia, whole aeons meant for nothing but kissing; like whatever came, fire or flood or the fall of stars, there was nothing more necessary than loving her; nothing on this or any earth that could pull him away.</p><p>Of course, that wasn’t exactly so.</p><p>Right on cue, Rey heard the swift patter of footsteps across the floor; she felt an insistent tugging on the quilt, and then the <em>whump </em>of something small but very much solid clambering onto the bed. It was enough of a warning for she and Ben to extricate themselves from one another, moving apart just far enough to create a space between them for the little body which promptly inserted herself therein.</p><p>For a moment, they simply blinked at each other.</p><p>“Hello,” said Rey, lips twitching with the effort of hiding her smile. The little girl, dark tousled curls falling haphazardly over her brow, only rubbed a fist against her eyes and yawned dramatically.</p><p>“What are you doing up, sweetie?”</p><p>Breha’s eyes flickered open again, bright as miniature galaxies in the darkness. They were hazel, in the light, filled with gold and hidden flecks of green that revealed themselves like gemstones in the sun. The eyes of a wild woodland spirit, Rey would think, in those moments—which were many—when she got lost in gazing, mercurial and fey; the eyes of the free, unfettered creature she had hoped any child of hers would get to be.</p><p>“Hi,” she sighed, sleepily.</p><p>Over her head, Rey’s eyes found Ben’s. He was smiling, too, and making no attempt to hide it—not that he could have, open book that he was, even his mask would have struggled to conceal the luminous joy that wreathed his features as he shifted close to them again, bringing his knees up so that Breha was safely cocooned between their bodies.</p><p>“I thought we agreed to sleep, little miss,” he murmured wryly, tugging the quilt’s edge up to tuck it around his daughter. Beneath the covers Rey found his feet with her own and tangled their legs together once more; above, she put her hand next to Ben’s on Breha’s side.</p><p>Reaching out one chubby hand, the little girl laid it flat on her mother’s cheek. “Skish,” she said decisively.</p><p>Rey smiled, but didn’t move. “Skish?”</p><p>Breha gave the toddler’s approximation of a glare at this display of parental obtuseness. “Sk-<em>ish.”</em></p><p>It was funny, Rey thought: the kid got the exact same furrow between her brows as she did when she was frustrated, but the way she pursed her lips and glowered was <em>all</em> Ben.</p><p>“I think,” said he, pushing himself onto one elbow so he could scoop Breha up into his arms and engulf her in a hug that almost swallowed her little form. “She means <em>squish.”</em></p><p>The peal of laughter emanating from somewhere near his clavicle was evidence enough that yes, Breha had indeed meant <em>squish,</em> and what was more—she wouldn’t settle for anything less than <em>both</em> of their participation. Rey laughed too when a little fist emerged from the protective enclave of Ben’s arms, beginning to wave around in sightless search of—<em>her.</em></p><p>“I’m here, love,” she promised, the ridiculous saccharine voice she hadn’t known she possessed until Breha’s birth turning the assurance into a near <em>croon.</em> Leaning in, she made to kiss that tiny hand—only to have it shoved in her face as the toddler flailed again. <em>“Ow.”</em></p><p>Ben was snickering quietly when Rey looked up, watching the pair of them with such naked adoration in his eyes that her mock indignation melted away in an instant, in its place a rising tide that threatened to pull her under and made her forget that she had ever known what those eyes looked like as the life left them.</p><p>
  <em>It was a dream. All of it. Exegol. The Emperor. Ben...</em>
</p><p>Ben, who lay alive and safe beside her. Ben, her soul's friend, the father of her child and her companion in all things: Ben, who loved her.</p><p>In all the long, lonely days of her youth she had never imagined that this might one day be her future. That she would find the sort of love worth fighting for, and get to keep it.</p><p>To keep <em>them.</em> He reached for her as she settled down into the pillows again and slung one broad arm over her hip, hauling her bodily towards him in a show of strength that made her mouth run dry just a bit and was, frankly, unnecessary, given she had already kriffing <em>married</em> him. Rey managed narrowly not to display all this on her face and let herself be gently manhandled, all the better to encircle their squirming daughter in her favourite form of affection. Between them Breha’s happy burbling gave away her delight at being <em>squished,</em> her contentment dappling the Force like the mountain river that wound past their home, singing waters flashing silver in the sun. It flooded Rey’s heart and soul, that place within her where all three were one, and between the miracle that was her daughter’s giggles and the grounding sensation of Ben’s hand stroking along her spine it was enough, finally, to banish every trace of the nightmare from her mind.</p><p>Her hand travelled over his bicep and shoulder, unable to resist dipping her thumb into the divot of his collarbone before moving onward, upward, threading her fingers into his glossy, silken hair. His eyes fell closed, her great jungle cat of a lover practically purring under her touch, and her heart was so full Rey could scarcely bear it.</p><p>Here, surrounded by her little family, the past could not touch her. The future they had fought for lay ahead, indistinct but suffused with radiant light, and she would face it with open eyes and a clear heart and the two of them beside her. That was the vow she had made: no more waiting for life to find her. No more waiting for fate, or the Force, to shape her path. She had slept for so long—a lifetime it seemed, so many years buried beneath the shifting desert sands, lost in dreams of those who would never come back, but now she was awake, and nothing could pull her under again. The long sleep was over: the time for dreaming was done.</p><p>Rey had everything she needed right here.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Saga's ruining me ok</p><p>love to my dear pythia 💗</p></blockquote></div></div>
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